Henry Woodfin Grady IV was born in Atlanta in 1930. He is the great-grandson of Henry W. Grady, the “Spokesman of the New South” and managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution in the 1880s. Henry Grady IV attended E. Rivers Elementary School and North Fulton High School. He attended college at Washington & Lee, where he majored in French. Upon graduation, he served in the Navy during the Korean War. After his service, he returned to Atlanta and worked at Fulton National Bank as a trust officer. He retired from banking in the late 1990s and became an active member of the Buckhead Men’s Garden Club.

Henry Grady recalls his family home on West Wesley Road, which was designed by Cooper & Cooper and later landscaped by William Monroe, Sr. He discusses attending E. Rivers Elementary School and Margaret Bryan’s Dance Studio as a young boy. He discusses at length his service in the military during the Korean War. He later talks about his father and his father’s work at the Robinson Humphrey Company. He goes on to talk about his lineage and briefly mentions his great-grandfather, Henry W. Grady. He also talks about his marriages to Tila Farrell and Carol Chambers. He then talks at length about his involvement with the Buckhead Men’s Garden Club and the organization’s greenhouses at the Lovett School and the Atlanta History Center. Finally, he recalls the beginning of the Atlanta Symphony, Enrico Leide’s role in its founding, and Leide’s involvement in the Buckhead Orchestra.

Interview by Chad Wright and James M. Ottley, October 9, 2011